Wednesday, 15 October 2014

home: wardrobe tour

I love this time of year; aside from the beautiful landscapes, evenings spent on the sofa buried beneath thick blankets and bowls of steaming soup, the arrival of the colder months also means it's time to pack away the summer clothes and rediscover my lovely knitwear. As I was shuffling stuff around, and trying to pack everything in, I thought it might be nice to write a post on how I organise my clothes and accessories, and give you all a little look inside my wardrobe.

Does anyone remember in the Sex and the City movie, where Carrie finally gets her humungous walk-in wardrobe? In my dreams, that's exactly what I'd have to keep all my charity shop finds, vintage lovelies and eBay bargains safe; I'd spend ages in there organising and re-organising, stroking the fabrics and occasionally hiding amongst my coats so the kiddos can't find me. In reality, if I tried to get into my cupboard as it stands, I'd end up scrabbling around like a trapped cat - it's pretty small, which is why I've had to utilise as much space as possible to keep everything organised.*

You can buy loads of fancy hanging equipment to add to your wardrobe, but I'm basically too tight to pay for it, so I just stuck some of those adhesive hooks on the inside of my doors to keep scarves, bags and necklaces safe. I've been trying to turn an old wire-coat hanger into a jewellery rack to hang in there as well, but every time I think I've mastered it, it pings back at me defiantly, pah.

I also use the outside of the doors as a kind of storage-display mash-up. You can fit a good four dresses or tops on the outside, so I just rotate things every week; at the moment my favourite things are a printed dress from ASOS, any vintage blouses and my best ever eBay bargain - the Topshop skirt pictured above; it's absolutely huge and has embroidered squirrels and birds on it, which actually sounds way more twee than it really is.

On the top of the wardrobe is a huge suitcase, which is full of the kiddos artwork and other crap beautiful vintage silk dresses and hand-embroidered velvet capes, and some wire baskets from IKEA, I spent literally months trying to find huge wire baskets to store bags and accessories in, but they were either too small or ridiculously expensive - the day I found these, I could have cried with joy. They're absolutely massive, so they fit everything in easily, and I love how they have gaps in the corners - it meant I could use the front panel to tie my favourite belts around to keep them tidy.

Hope you enjoyed the tour - if you've got any tips for small space organisation I'd be really keen to hear them, so feel free to leave them in the comments!